What are your thoughts on chronic anxiety and DP/DR induced by psychedelics? Do you have an idea of how common this kind of condition is and how best to treat or manage it?
We don’t know the population rate of how often these happen, but we do know that they happen. We have published multiple survey studies on such enduring negative psychological effects, e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551678/ . This was survey work probing folks who claimed to have had a challenging experience, but among these there was a clear signal for some people to have long lasting disturbances. I’ve been approached by a many such folks. I would note that we have not seen this in the modern or older eras of research when good screening and safety practices are in place.
I don’t know what DP/DR is, sorry. Episodes of anxiety are not uncommon, and some people using psychedelics outside of clinical trials have panic attacks; these are sometimes mis-diagnosed as psychotic breaks, because they can present similarly, but they usually pass. I can’t stress enough the differences between using psychedelics “free range” and in a therapeutic setting, where even “bad trips” can prove so useful and constructive that they’re typically referred to not as “bad” but “challenging trips.” An experienced facilitator can divert a patient from a frightening episode, often by advising the patient to “surrender” to what’s happening in the mind. The dissolution of one’s ego can be terrifying unless you’ve been prepared to let it go, in which case it can be ecstatic. Setting and setting is everything when it comes to psychedelics.
What are your thoughts on chronic anxiety and DP/DR induced by psychedelics? Do you have an idea of how common this kind of condition is and how best to treat or manage it?
We don’t know the population rate of how often these happen, but we do know that they happen. We have published multiple survey studies on such enduring negative psychological effects, e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551678/ . This was survey work probing folks who claimed to have had a challenging experience, but among these there was a clear signal for some people to have long lasting disturbances. I’ve been approached by a many such folks. I would note that we have not seen this in the modern or older eras of research when good screening and safety practices are in place.
I don’t know what DP/DR is, sorry. Episodes of anxiety are not uncommon, and some people using psychedelics outside of clinical trials have panic attacks; these are sometimes mis-diagnosed as psychotic breaks, because they can present similarly, but they usually pass. I can’t stress enough the differences between using psychedelics “free range” and in a therapeutic setting, where even “bad trips” can prove so useful and constructive that they’re typically referred to not as “bad” but “challenging trips.” An experienced facilitator can divert a patient from a frightening episode, often by advising the patient to “surrender” to what’s happening in the mind. The dissolution of one’s ego can be terrifying unless you’ve been prepared to let it go, in which case it can be ecstatic. Setting and setting is everything when it comes to psychedelics.
I think it stands for “depersonalisation” and “derealisation”